EIWA Championships

I attended the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Championships last weekend at Penn's Palestra with my fraternity brother and former apartment-mate, Doug Henning. He flew in from Charlotte.

That's us posing with Benjamin Franklin on the Penn campus between wrestling sessions.

Our alma mater, Lehigh, finished a distant second to the league's dominant power these days, Cornell. It increasingly seems the Mountain Hawks will have to become resigned to being the East's third best wrestling program, behind powerhouses Penn State and Cornell. That wasn't always the case, but I don't see it changing anytime soon.

Going to the Easterns at Penn brings back fond memories, not just of the days when Doug and I were rabid Lehigh wrestling fans as college students, but also to my second tournament when I was only 14 years old. My grandfather, my dad, my uncle, my sister, our cousins and I attended the Easterns at the Palestra in 1967 to see the last of the great Lehigh teams headed by the legendary three-time national champion Mike Caruso.

Our search for a suitable place in walking distance for the adults and a group of young teenagers to eat between wrestling sessions, which finally landed us in a really seedy bar and a funny encounter between the girls and an ancient barfly, was the stuff of family legend.

I attended my first Easterns at Franklin & Marshall with my grandparents in 1964, sparking my lifelong interest in a sport that I never participated in myself outside of intramurals. I helped launch a college wrestling newspaper not long after I graduated, and I still attend meets regularly.

You wouldn't know it by the continuing popularity of high school wrestling in the Lehigh Valley, but the sport has slipped badly over the years at the college level, with many schools dropping wrestling and others in danger of doing the same. There's a campaign now to save the sport at one of the EIWA's new member institutions, Boston University.

Much of that is basic college economics. Lehigh draws good crowds and has tremendous alumni support, but the numbers don't work so well elsewhere.

And even at Lehigh, the composition of the crowds -- heavily leaning toward senior citizenship, at least among the alumni supporters -- raises questions about the sport's long-term viability. The vast majority of the younger people you see at an event like the Easterns, particularly among the lesser wrestling schools, are parents and friends of the competitors.

My friends and I used to arrive early at Lehigh's Grace Hall and wait in line outside to get prime seats close to the mat. Now those seats are reserved and mostly inhabited by older alumni. There still are some students there, but nowhere near in the numbers or enthusiasm of the '60s and '70s.

And little wonder. Nostalgia aside, the sport is pretty darned boring, very much in need of some rules overhauls and strong directives to referees to force more action by penalizing wrestlers for stalling. They're incredibly lax and inconsistent about it, and in many cases, the sport's lack of activity is most dramatic in its biggest showcases, the finals of these tournaments, where wrestlers tend to be more cautious and evenly matched.

The first bout at Sunday night's EIWA finals was a perfect example. The 125-pounders traditionally would provide the fastest action because of their quickness. Instead, it was an epic stallfest with almost no action and a 2-1 result. The competitors spent most of the bout on their feet pushing and staring at one another while we all waited for something to happen. It never did.

Both semifinal bouts at 133 ended in 1-1 ties. The overtimes were exciting, but what about the other seven minutes?

Ironically, the best bout of the finals involved the traditionally slow-moving heavyweights, who put on a tremendous show. But that was very much the exception. And one change the sport has made -- encouraging the referees to check controversial calls via replay -- has further slowed things down. One bout featured back-to-back replay reviews, and when one of the coaches was dissatisfied, everyone rehuddled for a new discussion that seemed to last forever, with no explanation to the forgotten fans.

I don't see enough high school wrestling to know how pervasive the inaction problem is there. Maybe there are readers out there who can enlighten me. What I do know is that if college wrestling's powers-that-be ever hope to kindle more interest among students, they need to find ways to force more aggressiveness and particularly more emphasis on getting pins, by far the sport's most exciting outcome -- and a rare one, unfortunately.

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If a wrestler wants to win, he has to wrestle year-round, attend camps, etc. As a result, even though it may not look like it, todays wrestlers are generally better than yesterday's. Not getting pinned is of the highest priority, after winning, of course.

In a country such as the U.S.,where the billionaires all want to be trillionaires, denying a scholarship to a worthy wrestler is now routine.

"Hate Is All You Need" (great indie band, The Delgados

Posted By: walkie wawtmire | Mar 11, 2014 4:52:13 PM

Your blog is spot-on, Sir William, and my objectivity should not be questioned by nature of being your co-founded of NMN.

Your honesty and candor have never been in question and it's a shame The Wrestling Rules Committee (often barely any younger than we are) doesn't 'get it.' The definition of entertainment is constantly emerging (how many movies lately challenge 'Gone With the Wind'?)

p.s.: I never realized someone from the Class of '74 beat me to their first Easterns by 3 yrs, no less. Sorry to miss you and Doug in Philly, unlike you I never graduated out of press row. DRD

Posted By: Denny Diehl | Mar 12, 2014 2:00:32 PM

We wondered where you were. We were at the highest point of the Palestra, where we had a wall to lean back against.
Denny, I know you've been advocating on this subject for years. Are any of these guys listening?

Posted By: Bill White | Mar 12, 2014 2:04:15 PM

Spot on Bill. Other than referee Gary Kessel, most of the other refs swallow their whistles on stalling, and one I can think of is horribly inconsistent and has rabbit ears. I remember Sol Israel giving out 'double warnings' to the "dancing bears" years ago, and it should be done with alacrity. "Make 'em wrestle" should be the mantra. But, until wrestlers realize they will be penalized for not shooting or making legitimate attempts it will continue to the detriment of the sport.

Posted By: Nick | Mar 13, 2014 12:13:27 AM

Add me to the list of your admirers Bill and to those who think you are spot on! Hand-fighting (aka dancing) has taken over the sport. (LU 73)

Posted By: Andy Spear | Mar 13, 2014 10:10:56 AM

How tough are Pa. high school refs about calling stalling in these situations?

Posted By: Bill White | Mar 13, 2014 10:27:28 AM

The hx of high school and college wrestling is replete with unfair stalling calls and non-calls. The rules are vague; you'll see wrestlers backing up for most of a period---nothing is called.

You'll see refs call stalling in the opening minute of the first period if someone backs up just once.

Quite common is the ludicrous call in the last 10 or 15 seconds on someone who's been stalling throughout the bout. The meaningless call at the end has no bearing on the outcome.

No one in authority seems to care, in PA or anywhere else.

Posted By: Lance Banson | Mar 19, 2014 6:11:58 PM

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